World’s oldest man dies two months after achieving title

(JTA) — The world’s oldest man, a New Yorker who attempted to flee Poland after the Nazi invasion in 1939, died at the age of 111.

Alexander Imich held the title of world’s oldest validated man for just two months before his death on Sunday. There are 66 women who were older.

Imich was born in Czestochowa, in southern Poland, to a wealthy secular Jewish family, according to The New York Times. He said he was not allowed to join the Polish Navy due to anti-Semitism.

He and his wife were sent from Bialystok, Poland, where they fled after the Nazis rise to power, to a Soviet labor camp. Returning to Poland after the war, they discovered that many family members had died in the Holocaust. The couple immigrated to Waterbury, Conn., in 1951.

Imich told The New York Times in April that holding the record for world’s oldest man is “not like it’s the Nobel Prize” and that “I never thought I’d be that old.” He said he never drank alcohol. He and his wife, who died in 1986, had no children.

Comments

Expecting most journalists to think through all the details of our past is challenging, asking them to understand the history of other countries, even more so. At least the writer didn't talk about "Polish" Death Camps. I'd also be curious why this landlubber wanted to join the Polish Navy.

Tim more comments on your shared post on my page, you will be pleased with result of highlighting this issue. -

Przedzienkowski Jakub · Top commenter · Uniwersytet Warszawski
The Nazis did not rise to power in Poland. The invaded and occupied the country. The Poles did not want them there.
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· 3 · 12 hours ago

Yvonne Kowalczewski · Top commenter · Georgetown University
This is revisionism of the worst kind! The Nazis did NOT "...rise to power in Poland;" Poland was the first country to fight back against Nazi Germany. Does the date September 1, 1939 mean anything to you???
Reply ·
· 12 hours ago

This is revisionism of the worst kind! The Nazis did NOT "...rise to power in Poland;" Poland was the first country to fight back against Nazi Germany. Does the date September 1, 1939 mean anything to you???

Be aware of this Polish Media Issues (PMI) group, although a clearly admirable and well intended goal to correct misleading statements, I recently had the horrible experience of quite intimidating and threatening emails from one of their members to my work email, even after I updated the issue that started the contact.

Thank you for correcting the most glaring error, but the statement "flee Poland after the Nazi invasion in 1939" seems to suggest that all of the invading German army troops were motivated by National Socialist (Nazi) ideology. Instead of double-guessing the Wehrmacht soldiers personal beliefs, wouldn't it be simpler and closer to facts to say "flee Poland after the German invasion in 1939" ?